Robert Murphy’s
first memory of Norman is that of listening to OU Prof and artist,
John Hadley, play the guitar and sing. It was 1976, and his roommate,
OKC artist Greg Burns, had brought him to the old groundskeeper’s
house near the OU golf course to hear Hadley play. Then they went to
the Library Bar where a guy with a chessboard beat him in 3, 7 and 10
moves – three games in ten minutes. It’s not the kind of
thing you forget.

In 1984, Robert
Murphy helped to install the new telephone system at OU - running
riser cables in just about every attic, ceiling, and cellar on campus
– and he worked at OU ever since (except for a three-year term
as a Telecommunications Manager for IBM), retiring early this year.
For all those years he was a Technician, installing, maintaining, and
troubleshooting various types of complex communications systems.

To be a successful
technician is to be able to work with both physical objects and
people. The success of any technical system requires an understanding
of what it’s designed to do, an understanding of the user’s
needs, and a careful coordination of installers, designers, users,
and administrators. This type of experience applies to political
systems as well.

More germane to the
issue of this election were his experiences on the Hourly Employees
Council and the Personnel Policy Committee at OU.

During Robert
Murphy’s three-year term on the HEC, he worked with several
others to try to fulfill the HEC’s actual purpose, that is, to
act as policy representatives for all the clerks, custodians,
carpenters, and other tradespeople that keep things working at the
University. They were consistently rebuffed in attempts to affect
policies that staff members had questioned in certain departments. It
seemed that there was a tradition that the HEC could only affect
general university policy – such as the Staff Handbook –
through its votes on the Staff Senate, which consisted of hourly
employees, salaried employees, and administrators.

Then, in 2008, the
Physical Plant administration made a policy change that affected
several hundred workers, and many were angry. Robert Murphy
coauthored an HEC Resolution in opposition to the policy –
which passed unanimously – and authored a critique of the
policy for members of the Staff Senate. After this, the policy was
quietly dropped. For those who wish to see this memo as an example of
Robert Murphy’s style when addressing an injustice, click here.

On the Personnel
Policy Committee, Robert Murphy was the chair of a subcommittee
charged with the rather mundane task of developing a proposal to
allow staff members to use Extended Sick Leave to care for seriously
ill family members (at that time, ESL could only be used for the
staff member’s own serious illness). Consulting with the other
subcommittee members, he authored a proposal that included “domestic
partners” as family members. This caused some concern among the
members of the PPC, not because they were opposed to the idea, but
because the term “domestic partner” implied a
relationship that was unrecognized under Oklahoma law, and would
likely lead to the proposal being unacceptable to the Staff Senate.
After some discussion, the proposal was changed to include the phrase
“…or other legally domiciled adult”, in the hope
that the way would be paved for the time when the Oklahoma
legislature finally recognizes that any adults should be able to form
civil unions that are the legal equivalent of traditional marriage.

Sadly, though this
proposal passed through the subcommittee and the entire PPC, it was
never presented to the Staff Senate. The economic situation at the
time precluded any consideration of proposals that might increase
costs to the university. Still, the fact remains that Robert Murphy
was instrumental in initiating what may be the first official attempt
to include domestic partners in personnel policy at an Oklahoma State
institution. Though there were those who disagreed with his strong
opinions on perceived injustice, they will say that he was both
serious and fearless in pursuit of a goal.

For those interested
in such things, Robert Murphy is first-generation American, born and
reared by his Irish parents in Detroit, Michigan. He volunteered for
the Marine Corps in 1965, at 17, and served honorably in Vietnam as
an Amphibious Tractor mechanic, hauling supplies and ammo to the
infantry.

He attended the Sand
Diego College of Engineering and many technical schools. He prefers
the Austrian School of economics, rather than the Classical,
Monetarist, or Keynesian schools, because of its concentration on
individual choice rather than macroeconomic calculation.

Robert Murphy is
familiar enough with Law to have won a judgment in Federal Court
against a large corporation, acting as his own lawyer.

He likes Mozart,
Beethoven, Chopin, Taj Mahal, and The Grateful Dead.

His favorite movies
are The African Queen, The Man Who Would Be King, and Pulp
Fiction.